I Kissed Church(ing) Goodbye

My friends Morgan & Dustin Drase, who you might know from the "Watchers in the Bar" podcast (which has been more like the Watchers in the Bunker lately due to Covid-19), come on the show to chat a bit about what it's like to live in our society as a married couple without any intention of having children. We break down this episode of Star Trek: TNG, wherein a weird alien species from a legendary planet kidnap the Enterprise's kids in order to keep their dying society alive...yup. That's the actual plot. Enjoy! 

Oh man, do we have an episode for you! Vicki Psythe Moore is a "vampire goddess and queen" that creates internet content to help others live out their fantasies, feel more relaxed and be more comfortable in their own skin. She is a creator of fetish content - including lewd vampire videos, hi-def photo sets, cosplay, ASMR, and more - and you can engage with her content via Youtube, OnlyFans, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. 

In this episode, Vicki brings her unique voice and perspective to a TNG story arc of a poor, unfortunate soul of an Engineer that seems trapped in his fantasy life, is depicted as the stereotypical incel nerd, and has a hard time in his normal, day-to-day life on the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D. We talk a little bit about bullying, social anxiety, and her own experience in playing a character of a Vampire Queen that fulfills dark fantasies for her many patrons and subscribers. 

Vicki was a wonderful guest with great things to say, and I'm excited to bring her voice to Thirst Officer. 

In this return episode, special guest Ryan Lessard joins the show to discuss TNG, Worf's first time, his new comic book project, and other things. 

No guest this week, so Gabe continues with the second installment of "We Need to Talk about Commander Riker", this time examining his relationship with his father as shown in the TNG episode "The Icarus Factor". Gabe opens up about his own relationship with his father, competition between parent and child, and the way complex relationships between us and important figures in our lives can have a profound impact on self-esteem, direction, and identity. 

"Sean TankTop" is a Youtuber with over 137.7M (yes, one hundred and thirty-seven POINT SEVEN MILLION) views on his channel, which rose to huge popularity initially due to his viral Game of Thrones reactions in the Burlington Bar out in Chicago, IL. He is one of three voices on "The Watchers in the Bar" podcast, where they discuss and review popular media - including Star Wars, Trek, and various other popular franchises. In our discussion, Sean and I discuss video game culture, woefully low expectations put on men in normatively cis-male dominant contexts in terms of their behavior, and chat about our own stories and journies to be better men. We also discuss how we first learned about sex, summer camp romances, and how we need to normalize better discussions even in places like bars and proverbial "boy's clubs" so we can challenge ourselves to be better. This was a fun one and I hope you enjoy it!  

Gabe sits down with Andre Henry, a prominent Atlanta-born musician and racial & social justice advocate/educator in Los Angeles, to discuss this highly-problematic episode of Star Trek and how it perpetuates tropes and stereotypes of anti-blackness in ways that even experienced Trekkies who are well-aware of this universally panned episode's problems might not have thought about.  

The debut episode. Gabe discusses what subscribers and listeners should expect from the show while mentioning the kinds of guests appearing soon. "We Need to Talk About Commander Riker", a discussion thread for episodes without guests, also begins.